The Communal Narcissist: Another Wolf Wearing a Sheep Outfit

One reason there's often in-fighting when you're working for a cause.

In his book Rethinking Narcissism, Dr. Craig Malkin distinguishes between three types of narcissists—the extrovert, the introvert, and the communal.

The extrovert is the easy-to-spot kind whose grandiosity is presented in Technicolor, the preener and the manipulator we’re most familiar with. The introvert (also called the “covert” narcissist) is somewhat more confounding because he or she lacks outward braggadocio and may have a self-effacing or vulnerable manner which belies the way he or she feels superior to everyone. But the communal narcissist is entirely something else. I hadn’t heard of this category until I read Malkin’s descriptions, and perhaps you haven’t, either. This third type of narcissist is a relative newcomer to the party; the designation is only a bit over a decade old.

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Surprisingly, while this narcissist shares characteristics with the other two—these are all people who continuously seek to validate their self-perceived grandiosity, esteem, entitlement, and power—this type focuses on promoting him or herself through commitment to others, communal goals, and the supposed ability to listen and connect. Yes, this is very counterintuitive (aren’t narcissists supposed to be out for themselves?), but a strong case has been made for these supposed do-gooder types. Here is how Malkin explains them in his book:

"[T]hey regard themselves as especially nurturing, understanding, and empathic. They proudly announce how much they give to charity or how little they spend on themselves. They trap you in a corner at a party and whisper excitedly about how thoughtful they’ve been to their grieving next-door neighbor. That’s me—I’m a born listener! They believe themselves better than the rest of humanity, but cherish their status as givers, not takers."

Does this sound familiar?

I’ve known people like this. They’re people who talk about having a “mission” or are “committed to a cause,” and they make it clear that while your life and concerns are petty and shallow, theirs are possessed of deep meaning and intent. You may have run into them on the PTA or at a charity event, booster club, or fundraiser. You may have been surprised when one showed his or her true colors by becoming hugely territorial and much more concerned with personal aggrandizement and appreciation than the communal goal you thought you were all working toward. And then there’s some terrible politicized brouhaha: Bingo!

Researchers have developed a Communal Narcissism Inventory, which asks participants to signify their agreement or disagreement with the following statements about themselves on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 for strongly disagree and 7 for strongly agree:

Some of these sound pretty grandiose (solving the world’s problems or global poverty) until you realize that anyone running for any office—it could be President, but it could be the election for head of the PTA, too—makes lots of statements that sound just like these; he or she promises to fix whatever no one else has been able to. And the other self-flattering statements are doubtless catnip to this particular narcissistic type’s ego and really don't sound that far out. After all, don't we all think we are trustworthy and a good listener?

Keep in mind that this is how the narcissist likes to think of him or herself. The reality is that he or she lacks the ability to empathize, is still a game-player, and carries all the other traits generally associated with narcissism. He or she is involved in community only as a validation of self.

Understanding communal narcissism explains why sometimes women and men who are largely viewed as “pillars of the community” and known for their devotion to charities and other causes can be highly destructive and unloving in their personal roles as friends, husbands, wives, fathers, and mothers. The friends, spouses and children of the communal narcissist find themselves in a particular bind because who would ever believe them?

That’s precisely what one daughter confided:

“My mother was the perfect hostess, a consummate housekeeper, sang in the church choir, and ran every fundraiser conducted in our town. She was highly sought after, although there was always a lot of drama in her wake. She was also cold and manipulative and unloving to me but I didn’t tell anyone until I reached adulthood. By then, she’d become so territorial that the invites to chair this or that dropped away and even family members were finally able to hear my side of the story. But, of course, my mother never acknowledged her behavior. She believed her own hype."

In their article on communal narcissism, Jochen Gebauer and his colleagues note that just as an agentic narcissist (the one who defines himself through actions that show him to be superior) will be liked and even admired until people catch on, the communal narcissist also enjoys initial admiration but will fall out of favor even more drastically because of the hypocritical nature of his or her motives.

None of that seems to matter, though, because as a recent paper asserted, narcissists of every stripe report high levels of Subjective Well-Being (SWB)—what you and I might call happiness. So in the end, it’s just the rest of us chickens who are unlucky enough to find one kind of narcissist or another in our lives who actually experience a distinct loss of SWB.

Hardly seems fair, does it?

Still, especially in an important election year, recognizing communal narcissism has value, don't you think?

A thoroughly interesting article. It explains the horrible feeling of unease left after interacting with a number of church ladies over the years. Communal settings and organisations definitely give these people an arena, and yes, from first hand experience, the consequences of being on the receiving end of their disregard can last for years and be very costly.

I think my mother had a lot of narcissistic PD traits and my guess is that she was more of the "vulnerable" type (her blatant narcissism was a mask to cover her true underlying feelings of inferiority) as opposed to the "invulnerable" type (those raised to believe that they're truly superior to other human beings, like a Nazi child's upbringing or like the "little emperor" phenomenon).

My mother was mostly like a "stage mother." She was obsessively driven to achieve fame, admiration, envy and praise through others; mostly dad and myself. I only had any interest or value to mother if I'd done something she could brag about. Talk about conditional love; I knew what that was as a toddler.

And, as I grew up I noticed that mother wasn't a team player at all. If she wasn't running the show (or event or party or whatever) she had zero interest in participating.

It's pretty horrible to grow up the child of narcissists; held to standards of perfection that are virtually impossible to achieve or sustain, and either ignored or vilified if you fail.

I wish that there were psychological evaluations for prospective parents to identify the narcissists and give them parenting education classes and perhaps mentoring or supervision to keep them from crushing their kids' souls, or worse: creating more little narcissists.

You're right on the money. We definitely need to screen parents and provide parental education when necessary. I believe people in general have no idea of the extent their parents' behavior negatively affects them and it's why so many people have destructive, delusional and selfish behavioral tendencies that unfortunately make this world the way it is. Unfortunately, narcissistis usually find their way to positions of power and have so much influence which is also why I think mental health education has taken so long to come into the spotlight. Lawmakers, who tend to be narcissists or worse, sure aren't self aware enough or inclined to think it matters.

Yes! They are thick in churches. I've seen them in every church I've become heavily involved in. They prey on weak & unsuspecting. I am a little ashamed to say I usually lick my wounds and walk away. I'm in the process of doing that right now with a ministry I've been involved in for a decade. This particular narcissist is our group's chaplain.
I don't buy into the myth that all Christians are hypocrites but I do believe these type of narc's are the reason that thought occurs. These narc's have discovered, through trial and error, that Christians are a more forgiving bunch. We put up with more abuse and are not as likely to stand up and say, "This guy is an abusive narcissist and we need to kick him out!"
If they try their gaming at a PTA, Bobby's daddy is likely to stand up and say, "Hey poser, meet me in the parking lot after the meeting. I have a few things I'd like to say to you."
At church, they can get away with it for years, if not decades. People simply fall away, find a new church, or leave their church life behind and say, "I'll never set foot inside another church as long as I live."
And it only takes ONE person like this to affect hundreds of good, thoughtful, Christian people. So sad.

Thanks so much this. After two decades and having left many churches, I've sworn I'll never officially join another church again and I have rarely gone to church anywhere in the last three years. I just started attending a church that seems "safe." This perspective will help me be discerning when getting involved. Thanks.

You're welcome. You're not the first person to comment in this way. A number of people in the non-profit world have also remarked on how often they've seen the pattern, the politics, and the in-fighting. And exclusion of those who dare to challenge. Interesting stuff, no? Best, Peg

I quit a job at a local gov't non-profit last year. My supervisor was the main reason why I left. She was older, a social worker that was otherwise seen as harmless and nice. She was always playing the martyr, prided herself on what a, "nice" person she was, always bragged about how open-minded and accepting she was (from my experience as a non-white person, she was actually pretty racist in much of her actions and beliefs). However, if she felt threatened by you, if you, "showed her up," by being good at your job or if you dared to question her, even if you had a valid reason to, watch out! The claws would come out and the creepy part was that it was so intentional, she would abuse and torment these employees when alone with them 1-1 and then go back to her public facing, "act" when with others. As someone who became a threat as a rising star employee, she let her contempt and hate fly in very passive aggressive ways toward me when others weren't around. Many people did not want to believe me when I told them what a bully she was, however, those who had dealt with her wrath before all understood. After I left, several other coworkers, esp a new one who became the new rising star, became her target and some people eventually saw what she was capable of and some of them apologized to me later on that they doubted me and did not support me when I was being tormented by her in such a sneaky way. Luckily, that supervisor was eventually fired for her incompetence after having such a high turnover rate and history of coddling to low performing employees and running off high performers.

I've found that there are many of these, "types" at non-profit organizations are able to climb the ladder quite nicely, since they wear a, "nice" persona as their mask, even if you have a bad experience with them, others will come to defense and other employees at non-profits are typically non-confrontational, so do not want to risk their jobs to stand up to someone like this. It's actually worse than dealing with a regular narcissist, who everyone knows is a jerk.

Interesting article, though I found the last sentence to be somewhat challenging to interpret and got the impression you were giving your personal opinion about someone who is running for president of America...like say, Bernie Sanders, or did I take that the wrong way? Were you hinting that you think he might be a communal narcissist? We know psychologists have said that Trump is a straight up Narcissist.

Philippa. I wasn't making a statement other than to say that thinking about communal narcissism is of interest in an election year. This isn't the appropriate forum for my personal political beliefs. Best, Peg

I've being saying something for years, along the lines of "There is no cause so good and just that it doesn't attract its share of self-aggrandizing assholes". But mine is a reaction of someone willing to simply get angry and dismiss the lot of them, rather than one willing to spend the time observing and understanding the dynamic.

I enjoyed this article, but it made me feel a little funny. Clearly it is bad to be mean to your family. But it is good to do good things in your community. And these actions are independent of each other. We should praise someone for their good works, assuming these works are actually good, even if they have 'bad motives' or do other bad things elsewhere.

I know the article is about characterizing a certain personality type. But it is sadly common in our culture to criticize the motives of people who help others, and to dismiss the good they do if they have bad motives. Ironically, notice how narcissistic this is - making the good works all about the person who commits them!

Know a couple of people like this. It's when you are in close proximity dealing on a personal basis you find out about these types. Still have days where i struggle to come to terms with this behaviour.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this article. Coming across it finally afforded some validation to my feelings, and showed me that I was far from alone in believing that these sorts of sanctimonious, "holier than thou" narcissists exist. I had not known of the term "Communal Narcissist", but was fully aware from personal experience that people of this nature were, unfortunately, very real.

Thank you, also, to those thoughtful people (above) who wrote in with their own insightful, and often very personal, comments. It is clear to me, from reading these painful anecdotes, that Communal Narcissists are both difficult to spot and, because of this, highly toxic. I note that several people suggest that they are hard to escape or avoid, because unlike the more blatant narcissist, they cannot be quickly and easily recognised for what they are, and because of this people sometimes get sucked into believing that they are "genuine, nice people" as opposed to the callous idiots that narcissists truly represent.

I have long understood that these Communal Narcissists exist, having had much personal experience of them. I would argue that my own father, plus my mother-in-law and one brother-in-law are ALL Communal Narcissists. My father was, behind closed doors, emotionally distant and cold, hugely judgmental and critical, domineering, controlling, manipulative, and (especially if challenged or called out) very, very aggressive. This is a man with a "hair trigger" temper (and a very loud shout!). He belittled and derided my goals and ambitions in life, to the point where I felt worthless. He did not support me to achieve. He took no personal interest in me (I doubt if you asked him, today, what hobbies I enjoy, or what my favourite food is, etc. he would have any idea). He rarely, if ever, showed affection. He bossed me around, trying to dictate what I should study, what grades I should get at school, what career I should have, how I dressed, and so forth. If you did anything that displeased hi, goodness, did he let you know! And he was not above being hands-on in his abuse - smacking, hitting (in his own words "a good hiding")!

This was a man who left school with NO formal qualifications of his own, but demanded that his kids should go to University. My sibling dropped out (quit/failed) and thus became the "golden child". I was ridiculed, and called names like "stuck up" for passing my qualifications and going on to do Postgraduate study.

But, in public, my father is a man who is a Freemason. Runs a successful business from home (which he says is HIS business, despite the fact that my mother runs it with him). This is a man who can go through the motions and make all the right noises. Pretending to show an interest in my education - check! Giving to charity via the Freemasons - check! Friends in high places (e.g. on the local Council) - check!

And then there is my mother-in-law... Behind closed doors this is a demanding, self-centred, self-absorbed, moaning, bitter woman. If she can worm her way into getting you to do things for her that she can't be bothered to do for herself, then she will. Walk her dog for her. Tidy her house for her. Put her garbage out for her. Fix her shed for her. Goodness! She was recently even trying to get my husband to "bleach her bathroom ceiling" for her! Get that?! I mean - WHO bleaches their bathroom CEILING, anyway?! Bit odd! The FLOOR, yes; but the ceiling?

Then, added to this, there are the bitchy, snidey comments. Like "Buddhists will burn in hell because they haven't seen the light of Christ"! Or, a comment made recently to me "Why should you get on, whilst my son gets left behind?" (She always compares her son's careers and qualifications to mine, and I suspect to other people's). There was a particularly vitriolic incident recently, where she started slagging off a woman who lived down her street to me, claiming this woman was an "alcoholic" and "spent all day in her dressing gown". She then went on to add that she hoped the woman would be "banned from driving". NASTY!

Then, there are the obvious attempts to try to convert us to HER (Born Again) religious beliefs. NOT wanted. Comments about how one of her relatives married a Catholic, and was ostracised from the family for it (offensive to me, because I was raised in a Catholic family, though I do not now practice any religion).

And the ENDLESS TALKING ABOUT HERSELF. This is a person who can make pretty much any conversation self-referential. We are talking about a woman who was a Nurse, and who once said "Oh, Nurses are angels. Everybody loves Nurses"! This, I assume, was her reason for becoming a Nurse. To bask in the glory of other people's adulation, and to class herself as an "angel"! Talk about having THE WRONG MOTIVATION. It is all completely self-serving.

Like the time she STOLE off me and my husband, and when confronted said that she "did not have to apologize" for it. Like the many times she has tried to manipulate us into doing what she wants by claiming if we don't WE are "selfish", or "going to give her a heart attack"! Like the way she endlessly sits and talks about HERSELF to anyone who visits her - it is nurse, nurse, nurse, religion, religion, religion, and all the while, emphasizing just how goody-goody SHE is - no wonder hubby and I feel uncomfortable visiting!

Again, the PUBLIC image is of a frail, needy little old lady who is so kind and caring because, hey! She goes to church. And she was a "angelic nurse". And she wears a poppy on poppy day. And she makes a public show of giving to charity (the irony, here, is that she even tried to give MY belongings to charity WITHOUT MY PERMISSION). I had a bag of necklaces that I no longer wear, and offered her the bag, saying that if she liked and wanted one, she could have it. Instead, she took THE WHOLE BAG, and I got word that she planned to donate the jewellery to charity. MY jewellery. Without MY permission. I have NO doubt at all that if she had given it to charity, she would have claimed that it was HER jewellery, to make herself look really generous. What a creep! I retrieved the bag AND GAVE IT TO CHARITY MYSELF. The point being, I have no issues with donations to charity. The problem was her intended way of going about it.

I am horrified to discover the fact that science and research in the fields of Psychology, Sociology, Mental Health, and so forth are so slow in recognising that the Communal Narcissist exists. It worries me to see that this is only just starting to be understood. Because this shows that people working in such professional fields really know very little about human nature. Despite the fact that this human nature is very obvious to some (including myself), and easily explained.

This about it logically. Criminals and abusers - people involved in nefarious activities, including Psychopaths, Sociopaths, and NARCISSISTS - want to be able to do what they are doing, and get away with it. They do not wish, ideally, to be caught. I would suspect that some criminals and abusers enjoy what they do; others, at the very least, have to make some sort of a living out of it. Now, in a court of law, defendants when charged with a crime, are asked if they can provide any sort of an ALIBI. The alibi presented by their lawyer, on their behalf, is what is there to suggest evidence that they could not, and did not, commit the crime. An alibi is supposed to be evidence of INNOCENCE.

Within a court of law, an alibi relating to a criminal case is presented after the event - when the person is in court, having been charged with a crime. Now, the narcissist (of any kind) wants to be able to abuse, because a narcissist needs narcissistic supply. But, and here is the important point, the MORE LIKELY it is that they will be revealed as a narcissist, the MORE LIKELY their supply will dry up!

What the Communal Narcissist does is CREATE AN ALIBI IN ADVANCE. The point being, that if somebody wishes to get away with nefarious activity, then an alibi is necessary. An advance alibi is far better than the sort of alibi that is given out after somebody has been caught doing something wrong, because an advance alibi serves to ensure that it is unlikely that SAID PERSON WILL EVEN BE CONSIDERED AS SOMEBODY WHO MAY DO SOMETHING WRONG.

Put simply, Communal Narcissism works to provide a narcissist with an alibi. The point being that it is improbable that most people could never believe that "kind, caring person who gives to charity and is on the PTA at their kid's school" (or whatever image the narcissist created) is a narcissist! The fake persona, and false image of pleasantry, that this type of narcissist fabricates is the ALIBI. In pretending to be so goody-goody, the Communal Narcissist projects a "false front" behind which their real self is hidden.

Think about it! Just how many of society's most EVIL and DEPRAVED individuals initially presented as allegedly "kind and caring"? Well, there's Harold Shipman, a "dedicated" and "helpful" doctor who turned out to be a SERIAL KILLER. Or, Beverley Allitt, a "kind" and "caring" children's nurse who hid behind this image in order to murder the children she was supposed to be nursing. Or Jimmy Saville, the celebrity who fronted and donated to many charities, visited the sick in Hospices, visited orphans in Childrens' Homes, and used this as a cover and a means by which to access his victims of sadistic abuse - for Jimmy Saville turned out to be a paedophile. What about the way in which the Kray Twins donated money to "worthy good causes" in their Essex territory, whilst at the same time patrolling this territory as gangsters and career criminals? Or the "holier than thou" messages preached by people like Franklin Graham, who oddly also preaches sexism (women are inferior to men), racism and homophobia?

Surely, it makes sense to question and to be wary when a person has to trumpet their "kindness and goodness" to the whole world? As several of the comments, above, correctly point out, some narcissists may be deliberately attracted to organizations like churches, Parent-Teacher Associations, Freemasons, The Rotary Club, Buffaloes, Round Table, Women's Institute, Charities and other not-for-profit organizations because these afford them the façade behind which to hide. They also offer a good source of narcissistic supply in terms of all the genuinely innocent, idealistic people whom they might dupe.

Likewise, it makes sense to consider that some narcissists may be drawn to jobs like nursing, youth work, medicine, policing, law, probation work, teaching, and similar because of the power and authority such posts hold. Also because of the access that they give narcissists to a supply of vulnerable victims, such as ill people, disabled people, victims of crime, or children and teens. Finally, because these jobs make the narcissist appear "kind and caring" due to the associations of ideas that the general public make (e.g. believing surgeons to be "heroic", nurses to be "angelic", or police to be "just").

I am surprised that so few people worked this out. And saddened that it took them so long. Still, better late than never. Hopefully this realisation will lead to a better understanding of how some narcissists hide their unpleasant nature. Also, it may shed insight into the need to better protect people from the damage that narcissists (particularly stealthy ones like these) can do. Communal Narcissists do not act out of ALTRUISM - all that they do is self-obsessed. That is, perhaps, why they come across to people whose "narcissist radar" functions well as sanctimonious and insipid.

Personally, I would argue that if somebody appears "too good to be true", then this is likely to be a fabrication. Trust your instincts - if it seems too good to be true, then perhaps it's FALSE!